


All a Family

by MyOwnSuperintendent



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fluff, IVF Arc (X-Files), Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:40:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24049081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyOwnSuperintendent/pseuds/MyOwnSuperintendent
Summary: At the beginning of season five, Mulder and Scully successfully attempt the IVF. When they then discover Emily, they must all work towards being a family.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 16
Kudos: 160





	All a Family

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own The X-Files or anything related to it. Hope you enjoy!

Mulder tells Scully on the first day, when she comes home from the hospital. He has to, because she’s smiling and alive and full of plans. “I should get a new comforter,” she says, when she’s set her things down in her room; he’s hovering in the doorway. “And I was thinking—maybe I’ll take a trip soon. Somewhere I haven’t been.” And later, when they’re having coffee at her kitchen table, “Do you think I could learn to dance?” So he tells her about the eggs.

He’s almost sorry he’s done it, at first, because she’s not smiling anymore; she looks hurt, pained, in a way he hates seeing on her face. But there’s determination in her voice when she says, “I want a second opinion,” and then he’s not sorry. She’s still making plans.

And then he’s a part of those plans, in a way he didn’t expect but maybe should have, considering how long it’s been since they had anything even vaguely resembling a normal relationship between co-workers. Which is overrated anyway. When she asks him to be her donor, he asks for some time to think about it, but that’s mostly because he doesn’t want to come on too strong. He wants to do this for her, and he tells her that, and he tries not to think about what it might mean for him.

He waits for Scully to come back after her appointment, trying not to pace a hole in her apartment floor. He tries to gauge her face when she comes in, but he can’t read it, can’t figure out if it’s yes or no, and then he admits to himself how much he’s invested in this, how maybe he should have actually used that time to think. But it’s too late to take things back now.

“Scully?” he says cautiously, tentatively. They should have made more plans, together.

She looks at him. “I’m pregnant,” she says. She’s smiling and she has tears in her eyes, and it really is too late to take things back, and that’s even before he steps forward and kisses her. _What should I say now?_ he thinks, frantically, but that’s before she kisses him back, slowly and sweetly and more than once.

He sleeps next to her that night, under that new comforter (it’s light blue, with darker blue dots), holding her close. They don’t do anything beyond the kissing and lying next to each other, and they don’t talk about it. But it feels different from the other times they haven’t talked about things. They’re savoring being on the same page at last.

Over the next couple of weeks, they start a new routine. They almost always have dinner together—Mulder puts himself in charge of finding things that Scully will like and that won’t make her feel sick—and he usually spends the night at her place after that, although they still haven’t taken things very far. There’s been a lot of cuddling, a lot of kissing. And they’re going to have a baby together. That too.

They talk about plans, now, but they’re usually for the immediate future, things like him coming to her doctor’s appointments with her. She showed him some pictures of car seats and went through a rundown of the safety features, and he helped her narrow down the list. Mulder wonders if he’s going to be here when the baby comes (at the end of August, which simultaneously feels very close and very far off), if he’ll consider this their apartment instead of hers. From the way she’s been looking at him, kissing him, smiling when he wraps his hands around her middle, he thinks he will, and he really hopes he’s not reading things wrong. But somehow he doesn’t want to ask. He likes what they have now, uncomplicatedly happy, feeling like things have fallen into place for once. When it’s something that just is, rather than something they have to think about, something they have to decide.

“I’m going out to California for Christmas,” Scully reminds him in mid-December, as they’re looking through some files in the office.

“Oh, right,” he says. “Are you…is that good? For you to fly?” He’s been reading some books, but it seems like there are a truly dizzying array of things that might be dangerous for pregnant women and that no one can agree on what they are.

“It’s fine. It’s still so early,” Scully says, but she smiles, like she does whenever they bring up anything related to the baby. _Their baby._ She pauses then, rearranging the pens on the desk. “I was thinking…would you like to come with me?”

Of course he would. He’s never liked being apart from her, and right now, he likes it even less. “That sounds…that would be great,” he says. “Are you sure it’s all right, though? I don’t want to get in the way of things with your family.” He knows she hasn’t told her mom about the baby yet. He wonders if she’s planning on doing it over Christmas.

“You wouldn’t be in the way, Mulder,” Scully says. “Of course it’s all right. You’re my…” He watches as she searches for a word; he can’t blame her, not sure what word he’d pick himself. She finally comes out with “my friend-person.”

“Your friend-person?” he asks. “Did you just make that up?”

“I mean…you’re a person who’s important to me,” Scully says; her voice is soft, and she’s fiddling with the pens again. “And I’d like it if you’d come.”

“I’d like it too,” he says. He touches her hand, stills it.

“I hate this,” Scully informs him, sitting back down next to him on the plane; she’s just returned from the bathroom, where he assumes, based on the expression on her face when she leapt up from her seat, she threw up. “I never got sick on planes before. Never in my life.”

“It’s the first trimester,” Mulder says. “It should stop by late February.” He realizes he doesn’t sound very comforting.

Scully doesn’t seem to think so either. “Don’t give me that shit,” she says. “Just because you’ve been reading some books, you think you know everything.”

“Do you not want me to read books?” Mulder asks.

“No. No, that’s good, that you’re reading books,” Scully says. “It’s the least you can do. After you impregnated me.”

He loves the way she words it, so carefully clinical, and he loves that it’s true. “You asked me to.”

“I know,” Scully says; she settles back in her seat and takes out a mint to suck on. “And really—I can’t tell you how much that means. That you said yes. I’m just mad because I can’t keep anything down and that bathroom looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since the Carter administration.”

“Understood,” he says. “You’re entitled to be.”

She manages a smile. “There’s another thing,” she says, after a moment. “I thought I’d tell my mom about the baby this week. How does that sound to you?”

“It sounds fine,” he says. “It’s really up to you, though.”

“Not just me,” Scully says. “You’re a part of this too.”

He doesn’t know what that means, exactly, and this is one of those moments where he doesn’t like the uncertainty. But he doesn’t want to push her, here in the airplane where they can’t just leave if the conversation doesn’t go according to plan. Instead he says, “Well, she’s your mom.”

“Still,” Scully says.

“Well, it’s fine with me,” he says again. “You’re going to tell her how it happened?”

“I don’t think I could get away with not telling her,” Scully says. “But don’t worry. I don’t think she’ll bug you about it.”

“I wasn’t worried about that,” Mulder says. “Just wondering.” He wonders if he should tell his mom. He wonders if he should ask Scully about that. Maybe if he did ask her, they’d wind up talking about what exactly their plans are.

They don’t talk about it that night, at her brother’s house, but they sit next to each other on the couch. They don’t share a bed either, but when they part for the night, she says softly, “I thought I’d tell my mom tomorrow,” and he nods.

He doesn’t know how she planned the conversation to go, because by the next afternoon things have changed. That’s when they find out about Emily.

The next couple of weeks are a blur. Mulder’s worried about Emily, and he knows Scully is too, and he’s worried about Scully worrying, about her running around nonstop. And he’s worried that if he tells her that, she’ll punch him. He tries to concentrate on what they can do to help Emily, on taking as much as he can off Scully’s shoulders. And it’s not just for Scully’s sake. Emily’s a sweet kid, shy with them, but he can tell she’s got a big mind like her mom’s. And eyes like hers too. He doesn’t like to think about her being sick, being scared. He thinks a lot about the baby when he’s with her. He wants them all to be all right.

But the drugs they find seem to have an effect: Emily gets better, after they try them, in a way that surprises her doctors, who Mulder would guess haven’t seen half of the things that he and Scully have. They go to visit her in the hospital, bringing coloring books and crayons, and the doctors say she’ll be discharged tomorrow. When she starts to fall asleep Scully kisses her forehead and smooths her hair. Then they go.

“What are you thinking?” he asks, as they walk back to the car.

“I’m going to get to work,” Scully says, “on the adoption case. I haven’t been able to think about anything but whether she’s going to be okay…but now that she is, I really need to get everything together.”

He should tell her he’ll help her. Whatever she needs. Instead, he says, “What about the baby?”

“What do you mean?” Scully asks. “I know…this isn’t what I envisioned, in terms of timing.” She says I, not we. He wonders if she’s sorry now that she asked him, that they started the IVF, that they got involved in this way. The kind of way they usually try to avoid. “But I’m going to make this work. They’ll be close in age, and that’ll be a good thing—”

“You’re going to make this work?” he asks. “By yourself?”

She’s quiet for a minute, and now he really wishes they had actually talked, in those couple of weeks before they came out to California. He wonders if she’s trying to work out how to let him down easy, if this is just too much too fast without adding him to the family. “I didn’t…I wasn’t thinking it would be by myself,” she says finally, softly. “But I don’t want you to feel like you have to do anything.”

“I don’t feel like that,” Mulder says.

“Because I know we haven’t talked about it, with the baby,” she says, barreling on, “and that was before Emily, too. I’m not trying to make you move in with me and get a white picket fence. You don’t have to—”

“I said I didn’t feel like I had to,” Mulder says. “And I think we should get one of those thick hedges. They’re more imposing.”

She stares at him. “Mulder, I’m trying to be serious here. And you’re talking about thick hedges?”

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m not sure what I should talk about.”

Scully shakes her head. “It’s okay. I’m not sure either.” She pauses. “But we don’t have a lot of time to figure things out. Emily’s here right now, and there’s not even that much time until the baby. So, if you have any ideas…”

“We could get married,” he says. He’s not sure that he planned to say it, but it makes sense, once it’s out of his mouth. He knows he loves her, has known it for a long time. And if they’re going to be a family now, why should they wait?

Another pause. “That is an idea.”

“We don’t have to,” he says, quickly, wondering why this conversation is so full of qualifiers. “But I would. If you would.”

“I just don’t want you to feel—”

“Scully, I don’t know what I have to say to get you to believe that I don’t,” he says. “I want to do this.” She says something, very quietly. “What?”

“I want to, too,” she says.

They get married at the courthouse. They bring her mom, who asks a series of “You’re doing what?”, “The two of you did what?”, and “You were planning to tell me when?” questions when they fill her in on the IVF, the baby, the plans for a fast wedding. But she smiles during the ceremony, at least, and Scully does too, a little shyly, and Mulder knows he does, in a way he can’t contain.

They spend the afternoon visiting Emily and talking to her case worker and the night kneeling on the bathroom floor while Scully throws up; her morning sickness is unpredictable in its timing. She looks incredibly pissed off when she lifts her head. “Ugh.”

“Anything I can get you?” he asks, brushing her hair back from her sweaty forehead. “I could run downstairs and hunt for crackers or tea or something.”

She shakes her head. “No thanks. I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

“Because we got married today,” Scully says, as if he’s missing something very obvious, “and now I feel disgusting and I look disgusting and you’re not going to want to fool around with me.”

“First of all,” he says, “it’s a little weird that you describe it as fooling around. Since, as you point out, we are married.”

“I just emptied out the entire contents of my stomach,” Scully says, “and you are going to fight me on my word choice?”

“Well, that’s what I mean,” Mulder says. “I don’t know what to say. If I say I do want to fool around, I look like an asshole who doesn’t care that you’re sick. And if I say I don’t, I look like an asshole who cares too much.” He does want to, of course, but then he has for so long; one more night won’t make a difference, if she feels that sick. “It’s really your call.” He squeezes her hand, next to his on the bathroom floor. Looks at their matching rings.

“I want to in theory,” Scully says, “but I feel like crap.”

“That’s okay, then,” he says. “We…we probably don’t want to do this here, anyway. Your whole family is down the hall.”

“Yeah,” she says after a moment. “Good point.”

He helps her to their bedroom, but only to sleep. They lie against each other. He wonders what she’s thinking. What she’d do if he told her he loved her.

They’re very busy over the next month, working on the adoption. They go to see Emily every day, and they sit on the floor and draw pictures together. They tell her a little bit about Washington, but not too much. (“Just in case,” Scully says to him. “I don’t want to make this harder for her if…” He thinks she doesn’t want to make it harder for herself either. He tells her the adoption will go through, and she squeezes his hand.) Emily still doesn’t talk a lot—mostly in response to direct questions—but recently she’s started smiling and running over to them when they arrive, which Mulder takes as a good sign.

What’s less of a good sign is that he and Scully still haven’t fooled around, to use her term, and he’s starting to wonder if it would even be possible to bring it up. He thinks maybe she took him too seriously when he said they didn’t want to do it with her family down the hall. It would be a little awkward, but he wouldn’t mind, really. But it’s not just that, anyway. It’s a lot of things, but mainly that they’re both so tired, especially Scully. They’re working hard during the day, and now that Tara’s had the baby, they don’t always get a good night’s sleep. “Do you think we should go?” he asks Scully, one night when they’re awakened. “We could get a hotel. Aren’t we kind of in the way?”

“That’s what I thought!” Scully says, eagerly. “I was even looking for places. But then my mom and Bill said we should stay. Because we’re family, and we can help out with Matthew, and they can help us out with Emily.”

“Wait, are we supposed to be helping out with him?” Mulder asks. “I haven’t been.”

“Just if anyone needs anything, my mom says she’d feel better,” Scully says. Another wail from Matthew; she sighs and burrows her head into the pillow. “I guess this is good practice for us.”

“You’re not supposed to be practicing when you’re pregnant,” Mulder says. “You’re supposed to be getting sleep.”

“I’m okay,” Scully says, yawning. “It’s not for too much longer.” But she looks exhausted, circles under her eyes. He’s seen her taking extra care with her makeup, before they go to meet with the caseworker.

“Here,” he says, “I’ll cover your ears for you.” She gives him a look, half-amused, half-tired, but she leans against him, one ear pressed to the pillow, the other under his hand. He puts his other hand on her stomach. He thinks she sleeps. In the morning, when they’re driving to see Emily, he pulls over at a drugstore and buys them both the strongest earplugs he can find.

And then, the next week, they have their hearing. And then they are parents. He knew they were going to be, but somehow, he’s still surprised.

Emily’s quiet as they approach Scully’s building—well, their building, now. Mulder’s in the process of working on his move; he’s given notice to his landlord, and he’s planning to go this weekend to see about his stuff. “Are you excited to see your room, sweetie?” Scully asks Emily. They ordered things from a catalogue—Emily picked a bright yellow comforter and a nightlight covered in stars—and had them delivered; Scully had her friend Ellen help out.

“I think so,” Emily says.

“All the things we picked out will be there,” Scully says. “Remember?”

Emily nods. “And can Elinor live in there with me?” Elinor is a very ratty stuffed rabbit; they rescued her from Emily’s old room, and since then she’s rarely left Emily’s arms.

“Of course Elinor can live there,” Scully says.

“We wouldn’t want her to live anywhere else,” Mulder says.

“Okay,” Emily says, softly. They’ve pulled into the parking lot now. She squares her small shoulders, looking very much like Scully, as Mulder unfastens the buckles on her car seat and helps her out of the car.

The place looks clean—Ellen must have helped with that too—and they go down the hall to Emily’s room. She looks around at everything. Goes over to the bed and leans Elinor against the pillows, carefully.

“Are you tired, Emily?” Scully asks.

“A little,” Emily says.

“Maybe you and Elinor would like to rest for a little bit before we have supper,” Scully says. “And Mulder and I could read you a book.”

“Okay,” Emily says. “ _Goodnight Moon_ , please.” That’s not a surprise, since it’s one of Emily’s favorites; they even brought it with them on the plane, just in case. They all settle onto the small bed—Mulder, Scully, Emily, and Elinor—and they read _Goodnight Moon_ , Mulder and Scully taking turns with the pages.

They make spaghetti for supper. Elinor sits at the table beside Emily; one of her ears is trailing in the sauce, and Scully gently moves it aside. “Careful, sweetie,” she says, and Mulder watches them.

After supper, they get Emily ready for bed and read another book. This one is _Madeline_ , Emily’s other favorite. She sits and listens while Mulder reads to her, an expression of concentration on her face. He wishes they could make her smile, but it doesn’t seem to be happening today. It makes sense, he knows, since she’s in a new place, one that’s bound to be a big adjustment. The whole situation is a big adjustment for him, and he’s not a three-year-old. But he hopes she’ll be happy.

“We’ll be right across the hall,” Scully tells Emily. “And we’ll leave the door open, in case you need anything.” That also makes sense, under the circumstances, although it means a continuation of the status quo for the two of them. Married, parents, with another baby on the way, without doing much more than kissing.

But it’s the right thing to do. “We love you, Emily,” he says. “Good night.” They each kiss her on the cheek, and then she asks them to kiss Elinor, which they do. They say good night again and go.

“Do you think Elinor could make it through the laundry machine in one piece?” Scully asks him, as soon as they’re out of earshot. “She is not clean.”

“That’s your number one question right now?” he asks. She does have a point, though; Elinor has a distinct smell, if you’re within kissing distance.

“Well, we need to take things day by day,” she says, defensively. “So yes. Right now, that’s my immediate concern.”

“Maybe we could hand wash her?” Mulder says. He’s not exactly an expert in the care of stuffed animals. Although maybe it’s a field he should start getting better acquainted with.

“Worth trying,” Scully says. “Or see if we could find a backup. I had two teddy bears who were the same, when I was her age. Brownie and Brownie Two.” She smiles. “Very creative, I know.” He tries to imagine three-year-old Scully with her two bears. He wonders if she looked like Emily. He wonders if their baby will look like that too.

They see Emily twice more that night. The first time she comes padding into the living room in her bare feet, Elinor in hand. “I couldn’t sleep,” she says. “And Elinor couldn’t sleep.” They take her back to bed, and Scully strokes her hair while he sings— “Yellow Submarine,” because he can’t think of any lullabies, but Emily’s eyes close, anyway. The second time is just as they’re getting into bed, when they hear her crying.

“I don’t want to be by myself,” she sobs, when they rush into her room. “And Elinor doesn’t.”

“You don’t have to be by yourselves,” Scully says. “I can stay with you for tonight. Okay?” But she looks so tired herself, and Mulder doesn’t want her to have to squeeze into a three-year-old-sized bed.

“Or maybe the two of you could come in with us,” Mulder says. “How does that sound?”

Emily seems to like the idea. She gets out of bed and takes his hand when he holds it out. They make their way across the hall and settle in together, Emily’s little feet cold against his leg.

He knows this isn’t a permanent solution, that it will be better for Emily if they get her comfortable sleeping in her own room. But for right now, this makes sense too.

They’re busy in a way Mulder’s never experienced over the next couple of weeks, and that’s with taking time off work. This must be why they usually give you nine months to get ready for a kid, he thinks: because once the kid is present, things never stop.

Emily’s still pretty quiet with them. She likes when they read her books, likes coloring together. Elinor’s always at her side, and Elinor has a lot of anxieties. She misses Emily’s old room. She doesn’t know if she’s going to like the playground near their apartment. She misses the Sims, but she doesn’t want Mulder and Scully to leave her alone, either. Emily tells them all of this in a matter-of-fact voice.

Mulder knows it’s very normal for a kid this age—especially a kid who’s been through what Emily’s been through—to vocalize her feelings through someone else, whether it be an imaginary friend or an increasingly dirty stuffed rabbit who, Emily tells them, does not want to be washed. He goes along with the Elinor stories, hoping that he can reassure Emily through her. He feels silly at first, though, and it’s a little disconcerting. He wants to tell Emily that she can tell them how she feels herself, that they’ll always be there to listen. But when he tries telling her it’s okay to be scared of new places, she says, “I’m not scared, but Elinor is.” She’s very stubborn like that. He doesn’t have to wonder where she gets it from.

It's worse at night. They’re having her stay in her own bed now, but that means one or both of them sitting with her until she falls asleep and going to her when she starts awake most nights, when they hear her crying. He wishes he could make things better for her right away. He wishes he knew the right way to take care of her.

He wishes he could take care of Scully, too, but that’s a tricky path to navigate; she tells him she’s fine, that she has to get up with Emily too and that it’s not right for it to only be him. “She needs to know we’re both there,” Scully says, “so she can feel safe with us.” He knows she has a point, but he’s worried about her not getting the rest she needs. He does everything he can, sometimes in a sneaky way, going out to do the grocery shopping before she has a chance to, not waking her up when it’s time to get Emily’s teeth brushed in the morning. He reads the nutrition chapters in the pregnancy books and makes dinner for her. He watches her a lot, trying not to let her catch him staring. She’s still not showing a lot, but she looks different, somehow. He’s not sure if he should tell her that, even though it’s a good kind of different. She’s always been beautiful, but there’s something about her now that makes it hard for him to look away, even when she turns her head and sees him.

Mostly he tries to be there for them both—to navigate on the fly, which at least is something he has experience with. When Scully falls asleep on the couch after dinner, he whispers to Emily that they have to be quiet. “Even Elinor,” he adds. “Can you ask her? I know she’ll listen to you.”

Emily giggles. “We have to be quiet, Elinor,” she whispers, holding one of the rabbit’s long ears against her mouth. “Dana’s asleep.” She looks at Mulder. “Why is she asleep so early?” she asks. “I’m not even asleep yet.”

They haven’t told her about the baby yet, since it’s early. “I think she’s just tired,” he says. “How about you? Are you tired?”

Emily shrugs. “Not really.”

“How about we go in your room and I read to you for a while, then?” he asks. “You and Elinor.” Emily nods—she makes Elinor nod too, by pulling on her ear—and they go.

He reads her _Madeline_ , then _Goodnight Moon_ , then _Madeline_ again. It helps that the books are short. He gets her ready for bed, tucks her in, and turns off the light. “Will you stay with us, Mulder?” Emily asks.

“Yes,” he says. “Yes, I’ll stay.”

It doesn’t take her too long to fall asleep, and he tiptoes out of the room, hoping it’ll stick. When he gets back to the living room, Scully is still asleep, but she stirs when he sits down next to her. “I’m not asleep,” she mumbles.

“Yes, you are,” he says. “But it’s okay.”

“Where’s Emily?”

“She’s asleep too,” he says. “With Elinor. I read them a bunch of books.”

“Thank you,” she says. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” he says. “You need your rest. Both of you.” He puts a hand on her belly, lightly, and leans down and kisses her cheek.

She doesn’t say anything, so he’s pretty sure she’s asleep again. But she’s smiling.

He should call his mom, Mulder realizes. They’ve been so busy that he’s forgotten, but he’s married and a family man now, which seems like something you should tell your mom about.

He calls her one evening while Scully’s giving Emily a bath. “Fox!” she says when she answers. “It’s been a while.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that,” he says. “There’s been…well, a lot going on, to put it mildly.”

“With work?” she asks.

“Not work, actually,” he says. “It’s…well, first of all, I got married.”

He’s not sure how she’s going to take it, and her voice doesn’t give him much of a clue. “You got married,” she says. “Anyone I know?”

“Yes, actually,” he says. “You know Scully. My partner, Scully.” He sounds idiotic, he thinks. He’s married to her, she means more to him than anyone in the world, and he’s calling her _my partner, Scully._

“Yes, of course I know her,” she says. “Well, this is new. But she seems nice.”

She’s still not giving him much, but he grasps at what he gets. “She is. She’s great,” he says. More idiocy. Time to move on to the next announcement. “And we have a little girl. Emily. She’s three.”

A pause. “Well, that’s new too.” Another. “Isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he says. “Well, we found out about her at Christmas. She’s Scully’s…she’s ours now…well, we adopted her…it’s complicated.”

“Sounds like it,” his mother says. “I’ll be honest—none of this is something I imagined you doing.” He can’t tell if it’s a criticism or just an observation. “But it’s nice to hear,” she says, after a moment. “It’s not good for you to be alone all the time, you know.”

He thinks about pointing out that he wasn’t alone all the time before, either, or that there are a lot of reasons he didn’t have much of a family, and that she was involved in some of them. But he doesn’t. “Well, I’m far from alone now, anyway,” he says. “Never a dull moment with a kid around.” He wonders when he started talking only in trite phrases. “And we’ll be even busier soon. We’re…we’re going to have a baby. In August. Scully’s pregnant,” he adds, even though that was probably obvious, from the rest of what he said.

Another pause, a longer one. “Oh,” she says. “Is that why you got married? So suddenly?”

“Mom, no. No,” he says. And then he’s barreling on—he might as well put it all out there with her. He doesn’t have anything to lose. “That’s not why. I married Scully because I love her. That’s the reason.”

“Well, that’s good,” she says. “There’s no need to get upset.”

“I’m not upset, Mom,” he says. “I just want you to understand. Emily, too. And the baby, already. I’m…I know you’re surprised. But I love her.” A noise behind him; he turns. Scully in the doorway of the living room, staring at him. Somehow this doesn’t surprise him. Somehow it feels right, that it should happen this way. But he wants to make sure there’s no room for error, no lack of clarity now, so he says, “I love Scully,” again, into the phone.

“I understand, Fox,” his mom says. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“You didn’t. It’s all right,” he says, as nicely as he can, because Scully is still staring at him, and he really wants to get off the phone. “So that’s what’s been going on here, anyway. How have you been?”

“No news to match yours, I’m afraid,” she says. “I’ve been reading. Taking walks.”

“That sounds great,” he says. “I should…I have to go, Mom. Scully needs my help with something.” She smiles at him, from the other side of the room.

“Yes, I’m sure you’ll be very busy,” his mom says. “But call again, Fox, won’t you? If you have time.”

“Of course,” he says. “Goodbye, Mom. Take care of yourself.”

“You too,” she says, and then they hang up.

And then he turns to Scully, feeling a little shy. “Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” she says, and she sounds shy too; she’s looking down at her feet, clad in her old slippers. She should have new ones, he thinks, soft and fluffy and comfortable for when her feet hurt. He should get some for her. He can do that, now.

“You heard that?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she says. She walks over then and sits down next to him on the couch. “I heard.”

“It’s true, you know,” he says. “I do love you, Dana Scully. So much.” That’s all he can say.

She reaches out to take his hand; he can see tears in her eyes. “I love you too,” she says. “Mulder, I love you too, and I have for a long time…” She stops, then, because she’s really starting to cry, but she smiles at him too, and he knows there’s never been anyone more beautiful.

“Good tears?” he says. “Right?”

“Good tears,” she confirms. “And it’s not the hormones, either. It’s us.”

“It’s us,” he echoes, and he leans in and kisses her. And kisses her. There’s no reason to stop.

She sniffles and wipes her eyes. “I want to make love with you,” she says. “Finally. After we’ve put Emily to bed.”

He loves her for her mixture of romance and practicality, even if he wishes at this moment that they’d already put Emily to bed. “Where is Emily?” he asks. “Sorry. I got a little distracted.”

“It’s okay. So did I,” Scully says. “She’s in her room. I told her I’d come get you so we could both read to her.”

As if on cue, Emily appears in the doorway too, wearing her pink pajamas. “Dana?” she says. “You said you and Mulder would come read me a book.”

“We will, sweetheart,” Scully says. “Mulder was just talking on the phone.”

“Here we come,” Mulder adds, getting up from the couch, extending a hand to Scully to help pull her up too.

Emily picks _Madeline_ that night, and they read it to her, this story of a brave little girl with red hair who has to go to the hospital but is okay in the end. It doesn’t take an advanced degree to figure out why Emily might like it, why Mulder’s already lost count of how many times they’ve read it. He’s glad of that now, though, because he can’t fully concentrate on reading. Not when Scully’s smiling at him like that.

They tuck Emily in, kiss her and Elinor, say good night. It’s all the same as yesterday, but everything feels completely different. They turn out the light, and then they’re crossing the hall to their own room. Scully closes the door, carefully, deliberately.

And then she’s kissing him again, like she’s never kissed him before. He’s breathless with it. “Bed?” he manages, and she nods, and they fall back together, still kissing, their hands all over each other. He cups her breast through her shirt. “Is it okay if I…?”

“Yes,” she says. “Just not too hard.” He caresses her, just lightly, but her eyes flutter closed, and the sounds she’s making are frankly erotic. “Mmmmm…. everything’s more sensitive now.”

“You’ll have to show me what you like,” he says.

“You too,” she says.

“You’re what I like,” he says, and she flushes, and it’s beautiful, and he wants to see it happen a lot more. She starts to unbutton her shirt then, but she stills when she’s halfway down, and her face looks more serious all of a sudden. “Are you okay?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she says. “I just thought…when I imagined this, us, I didn’t think I’d be pregnant the first time.” Her hands are folded in front of her, over her stomach.

It takes him a moment to figure out what she’s worried about, maybe because he’s so caught up in everything, but then he gets it. “Hey,” he says. “You are absolutely beautiful, you know. All the time. But now especially.” She looks like she might be about to protest, so he goes on. “I mean it,” he says. “Looking at you and knowing you’re going to have our baby…” He kisses her again. “I’m a lucky guy.”

She lets him help her take her shirt the rest of the way off then, and her bra, and he kisses, caresses, her full breasts, the swell of her belly. He whispers that she’s beautiful again. He watches her face and listens to her breathing.

When they’re making love, finally, after years of longing and working their way towards each other, he looks up at her face, concentrates on her eyes to reassure himself that this is real. “Scully,” he says, “Scully, Scully,” and she gasps out his name when she comes. He’s found something so extraordinary, and in that moment, he believes.

They hold each other close afterwards, for what might be seconds or minutes or hours, and then she says that they should get dressed, in case Emily wakes up and comes looking for them. He stands behind her while she brushes her teeth, one hand on her abomen, the other holding his own toothbrush.

“Next week will officially be the second trimester,” Scully says. “Do you know what that means?”

He’s been reading the books, but he still thinks it’s a little unfair to give him a quiz now, in the midst of postcoital bliss. He tries his best. “Reduced risk of miscarriage,” he says. “Right?”

“That’s one thing,” Scully says. “And it’s a very good one. But what else?”

“Um…we can find out if it’s a boy or girl,” he says. “If you want to. Do you think you want to? We haven’t really talked about it yet.”

“I’m not sure,” Scully says. “It might be nice to be surprised. But I wonder if it would be easier for Emily to know whether she’s getting a brother or sister.”

“Do you think that makes a difference?” he asks. “It’s a newer thing, finding out, after all.”

“True,” Scully says. “I just thought it might be easier to talk about it with her that way.”

“You still want to wait a while, though,” Mulder says. “Right?”

“Right,” Scully says. “I think we should hold off with Emily for as long as possible. Until I’m really starting to show. There are still some risks, even now, and I don’t want to have to explain to her…” She trails off, and he holds her close.

“Baby will be fine,” he says. “We’ve got good luck.”

She laughs. “Since when?”

“Since we found out we were having a baby together,” he says. “Since we found Emily. Since I asked you to marry me. Since tonight. Since all those things.” He’s not usually one to trust in luck. But after hearing Scully say she loved him, he can’t help trusting just a little.

“Maybe you’re right,” she says, squeezing his hand. “You made me feel lucky tonight, anyway.” She smirks at him in the mirror. “Which reminds me. You still didn’t say what I was thinking of. For the second trimester.”

“Um…I give up,” he says. “Just tell me.”

“I’m probably going to want sex a lot,” she says; her voice is matter of fact, and her face is absolutely wicked. “That’s one of the effects. You think you can help with that?”

He spins her around and kisses her again, which seems to be enough of an answer.

It seems like the right time to tell Emily about the baby, the most propitious. She’s seemed much more settled in the past few weeks: she hasn’t been waking up in the night anymore, and she’s stopped saying that Elinor misses California. In fact, she goes so far as to tell them that Elinor likes it here, now. “She likes the playground,” Emily says, “and my room. And she likes when you read to us. And when you make French toast.”

“How about you?” Mulder asks her. “Do you like those things too? Or just Elinor?”

Emily gives him a look. “Me too. Of course.” And she starts to go back to her coloring then, but Mulder and Scully both have to hug her first.

So she’s doing better at home with them, and she’s doing all right in preschool too; they have her in one for children of government employees, in the mornings. Of course they’ll be on leave again in a few months, but they thought they should get Emily started now so that she’d have a chance to get used to it. She says she likes all the books they have there, and playing with the other kids, and doing art. Art seems to be the main thing they do at preschool, and dried macaroni glued to paper seems to be their main medium. At the moment it’s taking up a lot of real estate on the fridge.

Mulder knows that Scully’s still worried about how Emily’s going to take their announcement, afraid it will set back her sense of security and leave them where they were before. But they can’t really wait any longer, even if they wanted to; Scully’s starting to show too much to hide, no matter what she wears, and if they don’t tell Emily themselves someone else is bound to blurt it out. So they go over their plans when they’re in the office in the morning, before they pick Emily up. “I think she’ll be fine,” Mulder says. “Lots of kids get younger siblings.”

“I know,” Scully says. “I wouldn’t be worried if that was the only thing. It’s just with everything else…” She shakes her head. “But you’re right. And we can’t just never tell her. It’s better to do it now.”

“I don’t remember my parents telling me much of anything,” Mulder says, trying to think back to the years when they were a seemingly normal family. “Before Samantha was born, I mean. I remember sulking about it at first. But after that I liked her.”

Scully squeezes his hand. “I bet you were cute together,” she says.

“We were damn cute,” he says. “How about you and Charlie?”

“I barely remember him being born,” Scully says. “And I was the same age as Emily. But we did okay. We’d play together a lot.”

“See, she’ll be fine,” Mulder says. “Great, even.”

“I hope you’re right,” Scully says. “I just want her to—” Her eyes widen. “Mulder, quick!”

He moves to put a hand on her belly, knowing what she means. In the past week or so, she’s felt the baby moving a couple of times, but it’s always been light, and he’s never been able to catch it before it stops. He doesn’t feel anything this time, either. “Did it stop?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Scully says, shaking her head. “It’s still really light. Next time, I hope.” She rests her hand on top of his for a minute, before they straighten up, gather their things, and head out.

They wait until they’ve gotten Emily home and given her a snack before they break the news. “Emily, honey,” Scully says, “Mulder and I want to tell you something.”

Emily eats the last bite of her graham cracker. “Okay. What?”

“In a few months,” Scully says, “you’re going to be a big sister. We’re going to have a new baby.” Her voice is calm, but Mulder can tell how hard she’s trying to do this the right way.

Emily stares at them. “Where will you get the baby?”

“Well, right now,” Scully says, “the baby’s growing inside of me. Right here.” She pats the bump. “Until the baby’s big enough to be born.”

Emily’s still staring. “But I wasn’t inside there,” she says, after a minute. “Right?”

Scully shakes her head. “No, you weren’t,” she says. He knows it takes an effort for her to say that calmly, to not let Emily pick up on how she feels about what was done to the two of them. “There are lots of different ways to make a family. This is just one way.”

“Why?” Emily asks.

Scully looks a little flummoxed at that, and Mulder can’t blame her. He tries to step in instead. “Because what matters is wanting to be a family,” he says. “Dana and I wanted to be your mom and dad, and we want to be this baby’s mom and dad too.” He stoops to give Emily a hug, and from the look on Scully’s face, he guesses he’s said something right.

“Will the baby live here?” Emily asks.

“Yes,” Mulder says. “The baby will be very small at first, but later you can play together.”

“That’ll be fun for you,” Scully says. “And next week, we’re going to find out whether the baby’s a boy or a girl. So you’ll know if you’re getting a brother or a sister.”

“How do you find out?” Emily asks.

“From my doctor,” Scully says.

“Do you have to be in the hospital?” There’s a quaver in Emily’s voice. Mulder hadn’t thought about this part.

But Scully keeps her own voice cheerful. “Not to find out. But when it’s time for the baby to be born, I will go to the hospital for a little bit. But it’s for a really good reason, so the doctors can help keep me safe and we can all meet the baby.”

“So is having a baby like being sick?” Emily still sounds unsure.

“No, it’s not like that,” Scully says. “It’s a very natural thing.” Of course, it hasn’t exactly been that for them so far, but Emily nods and seems to accept it.

“Will you read to me?” she asks, after a minute, and Mulder tells her that they will. And they start in with _Madeline_ , and she doesn’t ask anything more about the baby right then.

“That went okay,” he says to Scully in an undertone, while they’re making dinner and Emily is playing in the living room.

Scully nods. “She doesn’t seem too upset. Maybe next time we go to the library,” she says, “we can get her some books about being a sister.”

“Sounds like a plan,” he says.

They put Emily to bed that night, and once they’re out in the hallway Scully’s lips are on his. “Bed,” she murmurs. “I’ve wanted you all day…. I can’t believe my self-control.”

He chuckles against her as they make their way to their bedroom. “Good things come to her who waits.”

“What I was thinking,” Scully says; she’s already in the process of undressing. “ _Come_ being the operative word. I want your mouth on me. And after that I want you inside me.”

“I want that too.” He has to stop and kiss her first though, maybe just to steady himself. Hearing her tell him so openly what she wants—and that what she wants is him—still feels like it might be a fantasy sometimes.

Even looking at her feels like a fantasy. Especially in moments like this one, where she’s leaning back against the pillows with lust in her eyes and absolutely nothing on. He loves seeing the changes in her body—maybe he’s just being a typical guy, because her breasts are definitely getting bigger and it’s breathtaking to say the least, but he’d like to think there’s more to it than that. He likes knowing that it’s because of the baby, their baby who they created together, who they’re going to meet in a few short months.

“I love you,” he tells her.

“I love you too. Now get moving,” she says.

He doesn’t dawdle with the foreplay, because he can tell that wouldn’t go over well, but he does kiss his way down from her mouth. His head is between her thighs when he feels her start. “Wait,” she says, and she presses his cheek to her belly.

And he feels it this time—a little flutter, barely anything, but it’s there. That’s their baby moving.

“Oh my god,” he says. “Oh my god, Scully.”

“I know,” she says, almost laughing. “It’s crazy, isn’t it?”

“Completely crazy,” he agrees, pressing a kiss to the spot where he felt the baby move. “There’s a person in there!”

“Our baby,” she says. “It feels so funny, doesn’t it?”

He nods. “Hi, baby,” he says, his face still against the bump. “It’s your dad here.” Mere months ago, he couldn’t have imagined himself saying anything like this. “You know we’re so excited about you?”

“So excited,” Scully says. “We can’t wait to meet you.” They lie like that for a minute, taking it in. Then she says, “Mulder?”

“You want me to get on with things,” he says.

“You know me so well.”

He’ll do anything she needs to take care of her now—rub her back or bring her extra pillows or make a run to the store for whatever she’s craving—but none of it is as pleasurable as taking care of her like this. She tastes amazing, and she’s so responsive, and he makes her come twice with his mouth in quick succession. She comes again when he’s inside her, his hands on her hips, looking up at her as she moves, and he follows her, moaning her name.

“I’m not sure whether to chalk it up to the pregnancy or the amazing guy I’m with,” Scully says afterwards, when they’re lying there with her head against his chest, “but I’ve never come as much as I have these past few weeks.”

That does things for his ego, he won’t lie. “Maybe you could chalk the pregnancy up to the guy you’re with,” he suggests. “Kill two birds with one stone.”

“Good idea,” Scully says. “You get all the credit, and I get my eyes rolling back in my head. Not a bad bargain.”

“Credit’s not all I get,” he says. “God, Scully, you were amazing.”

She flushes, and she’s leaning in to kiss him when they hear a voice. “Dana? Mulder?”

Scully yanks the sheet up with a speed he wouldn’t have believed humanly possible but for which he’s very grateful and turns to look at Emily, who is standing by the bed, clutching Elinor, with an anxious look on her face. “What is it, sweetheart? Do you need something?”

Emily looks at them for a minute, and Mulder hopes she didn’t see too much. But her question, when it comes, has nothing to do with their state of undress. “When is the baby coming?”

“In August,” Scully says. “That’s four months from now.” She’s managing to sound remarkably unflustered.

Emily pulls at one of Elinor’s ears. “When the baby comes,” she asks, “will I go away?” Her lip is trembling.

“No,” Scully says. “No, of course not.”

“We’ll all live together,” Mulder says. “We’d never want you to go away. We’re a family.”

“Is there something that made you think you’d have to go away, sweetheart?” Scully asks. She’s still got the sheet pulled up to her chin, but she reaches out with one hand to touch Emily’s cheek.

“I don’t know,” Emily says. “Will the baby sleep in my room instead of me?”

“That’s your room,” Scully says. “The baby will probably sleep in here with me and Mulder for a little bit. And then she’ll have the room at the end of the hall. But no one is going to take away your room.”

“But you got me,” Emily says, “and now you’re getting the baby instead.”

“Not instead,” Mulder says. “The baby’s just another person. Like I’m one person, and so are you, and so is Dana. There’s no instead.” He feels terrible, looking at her sad little face.

“We love you so much because you’re you,” Scully says, “and we’ll love the baby a lot too, but in a different way. Because the baby will be a different person. And that will never, never mean that we love you any less.”

“Dana’s right,” Mulder says, but Emily still looks so sad.

“Do you want us to come and sit with you?” Scully asks, and Emily nods. “Okay, sweetheart. Will you go back to your room and wait for us? We’ll come in a minute.”

“Why aren’t you wearing shirts?” Emily asks.

“We were doing something private,” Scully says, and Mulder can’t believe how quickly she had that one ready. He salutes her. “Go and wait for us, okay? We’ll be right there.”

When Emily nods and goes, they hurry into their clothes and follow her. She’s sitting on her bed, her arms wrapped around Elinor. “Want us to tuck you in?” Mulder asks. She nods again, and he wraps the blankets around her, gently. “You don’t have to worry about anything,” he tells her. “We love you and we always will.”

“That’s a promise,” Scully says, kissing Emily’s cheek.

She clings to their hands. “Stay,” she says, and they do.

There’s still so much to get done, and today they’re packing it in: first they went to a childbirth class, and next they’re going to the doctor’s office, for Scully’s check-up. They’re going to find out if they’re having a boy or a girl today, and when they left the house Mulder was excited about that. Now, as they leave the class, he has other things on his mind.

“You look green,” Scully informs him as they get into the car.

“I feel green,” Mulder says. “Do you think that video was completely necessary?”

“It’s a childbirth class, so yes,” Scully says. She looks remarkably unfazed. He guesses autopsies will do this to you. But at least autopsies don’t involve that much screaming.

“It was…intense,” he says, unable to come up with a better word.

“That’s what it’s like,” Scully says. “Are you going to be okay with this? Because I’m going to need you there. And after all, you won’t be the one who’s—”

“That’s the point,” he says. “I don’t like to think of you hurting.”

“Oh, Mulder,” she says. She’s smiling, though, when she squeezes his hand. “I’m sure it’s not going to be fun. But it’s normal. And we’ll have a baby at the end of it. You don’t need to worry about me.”

He squeezes her hand back. “Well, I’ll do my best to not be squeamish,” he says. “And I will be there for the whole thing. You can count on that.”

“I know it,” she says, and she’s still smiling as they drive to the doctor’s office.

She’s smiling again when they leave the doctor’s office, on their way to pick up Emily. They got copies of the ultrasound, and she’s holding them in her hand, looking down at them every few seconds. The baby still looks like a blur to Mulder, but _their_ blur, which is enough. “Hey, little girl,” Scully says softly, one hand on her bump, the other on the picture. “You’re awake, huh?”

“A girl,” Mulder says, savoring it. He really didn’t have a preference until the doctor told them they were having a daughter, when he became convinced that had been his preference all along.

“Are you excited?” Scully asks.

“Of course,” Mulder says. “Two daughters.”

“We should start thinking about names now,” Scully says. “Do you have any ideas?” And then, softly, while he’s thinking, “Do you want to name her after Samantha?”

He hadn’t thought about that either, but he knows the answer. “No,” he says quickly. “Thank you for asking, Scully. I mean it. But it would be too much…it would mean she was gone.”

Scully nods. “I understand,” she says, and he knows she does.

When they pick up Emily, she shows them a picture she drew. “It’s the three of us,” she says, thrusting it at them. “It’s for you.”

“Thank you, Emily,” Mulder says. “It’s beautiful.” He notices she doesn’t make any mention of the baby, which doesn’t surprise him. She’s been clingier than usual since they told her last week; he supposes it’s a good thing, in a way, since it means she’s grown attached to them, but he wishes they were able to reassure her better. When they try talking about the baby casually, about the things that all four of them will do together, Emily looks upset still; she’s been asking them a lot of questions like, “Will we still go to the park when the baby’s here?” and “Will I have to share Elinor?” and “Do we have to have the baby?” They do their best to answer her (yes, no, yes but we think you’ll like the baby), but they can tell she’s not yet on board with the idea.

They let Emily tell them all about her morning before sharing the news. “Guess what we found out today, Emily?” Scully says. “We found out that the baby is going to be a girl. A little sister for you.”

“Oh,” Emily says. “Okay.”

“Do you think you’ll like that?” Mulder asks.

Emily shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“Do any of the kids you go to school with have sisters?” he asks her. “Any of your friends?”

She appears to be deep in thought for a minute. “Sarah and Hannah are sisters,” she says, eventually.

“And do they like to play together?” Mulder asks.

“Yes,” Emily says. “They’re twins,” she adds, which puts a bit of a damper on things. No getting used to a new baby there.

“Would you like to see a picture of your sister, Emily?” Scully asks. “We got some pictures at the doctor’s today.”

“I thought we couldn’t see the baby yet,” Emily says.

“We can’t see her just looking at me,” Scully says, “but they have special tools at the doctor’s.” She holds out one of the ultrasound pictures, and after a minute Emily goes over to look.

“That doesn’t look like a baby,” she says. “I don’t see anything.”

“It does look a little funny at first,” Scully says. “But see, there’s her head…”

Emily looks worried. “Will she be funny-looking?”

“No,” Scully says, kissing the top of Emily’s own head. “Don’t worry about that. It’s just the kind of picture they take. And she’s not done growing yet. But when she’s here, she’ll look just like any baby.” She looks thoughtful for a moment, and then she says, “Emily, do you know what you looked like when you were a baby?” Emily shakes her head. “Would you like to see?”

They found the photographs when they were going through things at the Sims’ house; they’d been placed in albums with clear care. There weren’t any of Emily as a newborn, but they started pretty far back. “She must be around two months here,” Scully said, staring at one photograph with an unreadable expression. She had to be feeling a lot of things all at once, Mulder knew, and he didn’t know what to say about it. So he just sat there beside her while she turned the pages of the albums, putting them all into the pile of things that they planned to take with them.

Scully gets the first album now, and she sits back down next to Emily on the couch, opening it to the first page. “See?” she says. “That’s you. Look how tiny you were.”

“Really?” Emily asks softly.

“Really,” Scully says; she pulls Emily close with her free arm and gives her another kiss. Mulder sits down on the other side of Emily, to look at the pictures with them. He knows Scully’s sometimes angry that she missed seeing these moments in person, and so is he; like he told her this morning, he doesn’t want her to hurt. But he can tell, from the tone of her voice and the look on her face, that she’s also grateful to be sharing today with Emily.

Scully ordered several name books, and they look through them during their spare moments, which aren’t many. There are so many names that it’s kind of fascinating, but it’s hard to know which is the right one. “Maybe she’ll go by her last name,” Mulder suggests. “A lot of people like that, I hear.”

Scully makes a face at him. “She doesn’t think that’s very funny,” she says, rubbing her belly.

“Moving around again?” Mulder asks, and when Scully nods he moves closer to her, putting his hand there too. Their daughter’s movements seem to be getting stronger by the day; he doesn’t have to strain to feel them anymore, but it’s still the strangest, most miraculous thing. “What do you want your name to be?” he asks, and even though he doesn’t get an answer, he listens.

“Hey, Emily,” he says one Saturday afternoon, when they’re all sitting around the kitchen table, “do you have any ideas for what your sister’s name should be?” The look Scully is giving him now suggests that she’s simultaneously pleased that he asked and unsure whether this is a decision best made by a three-year-old.

Emily looks up from her coloring. “Why?”

“We’re trying to pick a name for her,” he says. “I wondered if you knew any good ones.”

“She doesn’t have a name yet?”

“Nope,” he says. “We get to choose that ourselves. Pretty neat, huh?” Emily shrugs. “Are there any names you like?”

Emily colors in the sun in her picture, the expression on her face showing that she’s concentrating. “I like Madeline,” she says.

“That’s pretty,” Scully says.

“Like in the book,” Emily says, as if there might be some doubt.

“It’s a good name,” Mulder agrees.

“So will that be her name?” Emily asks.

“We’ll put in on our list,” Mulder says. “We probably won’t decide for sure until closer to when she gets here.”

But he likes the sound of it, _Madeline Mulder_ , and he thinks Scully might too. And Emily is smiling, which she doesn’t usually do when they talk about the baby. When Scully says, “Oh, she’s moving. Do you want to feel her kick?” she puts her hand on Scully’s belly and laughs.

“Are you feeling okay?” Mulder asks Scully. They were out at the park all morning, pushing Emily on the swings, and it’s a pretty hot day, and she looks tired.

“I’m all right,” she says. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Want to rest for a little bit before lunch?” he asks. “I’ll get everything ready. Emily can help me. Can’t you, Emily?” She nods enthusiastically.

“That sounds good,” Scully says. “Thanks.” He kisses her cheek before she walks slowly in the direction of the bedroom.

Emily is putting their plates on the table when she says, “What will the baby call you and Dana?”

“What do you mean?” he asks.

“When the baby is here,” Emily says, “will she call you Mulder and Dana? Or Daddy and Mommy?”

He can tell this is a big question, and he wants to give Emily the right answer. “Well, when she first gets here, she won’t call us anything,” he says. “Because she won’t be able to talk yet. But when she gets a little bigger…she’ll probably call us Daddy and Mommy. But—”

“Oh,” Emily says. “Do I call you that too?”

“That’s up to you,” he says. He doesn’t want to pressure her, even though he would love that, and he knows Scully would.

“You said me and the baby would be the same,” Emily says. “And you would love us the same.”

“And that’s true,” Mulder says. “Of course we will.”

“Then we should call you the same,” Emily says. Her lips are pursed, as if she’s thinking very hard.

He stoops down so he can look her in the eye. “Dana and I would like it a lot if you wanted to call us that,” he says. “But nothing will make any difference to how much we love you. Okay?”

“But I want to call you that,” Emily says. “Because you are my daddy and my mommy. Right?”

“Of course we are,” he says, and he hugs her then, and she hugs him back, clinging to his legs. “So that’s all settled then.”

“All settled,” she repeats, nodding vigorously. “All settled, Daddy.”

Scully almost chokes on her sandwich when Emily calls her Mommy during lunch, and then she stops eating to hug her too. The smile on her face that afternoon is a beautiful thing.

“I’m so glad she feels…she feels that way about us,” she says to Mulder that night; they’re lying in bed, his arms around her.

“Me too,” he says. “And just in time, too.”

“Mmm,” Scully says. “One more month.”

“One more month,” he agrees, pressing a kiss behind her ear, holding her while she drifts off to sleep.

They’ve planned for Maggie to stay with Emily while the baby is born; as Scully’s due date approaches, she assures them she’ll be on call. One Saturday morning, Emily’s flipping through picture books on the living room rug when Scully beckons to Mulder from the bedroom and hisses, “I think it’s time,” into his ear.

“For the baby?” he says.

“Yes, for the baby. What do you think?” She sounds a little irritated, but he probably would be too, if he were about to push a person out of his body.

“Are you all right?” he asks.

“The contractions are still pretty far apart,” she says. “But I’m going to call my doctor. And you call my mom, okay? We don’t want to be in a rush.”

They make the calls. They pick up the bag that Scully has painstakingly packed. They kiss Emily, tell her they love her, and let her know they’ll see her tomorrow. And then they go.

They’ve been in hospitals many times together, but this one feels different. Nothing’s wrong. After everything, it’s something good.

He gets Scully ice chips, strokes her hair back from her face, holds her as she braces herself against him. “You’re doing so well,” he murmurs to her. “Almost there.” She doesn’t answer him in words, but her hand finds his, squeezes it tight.

They lose time. He doesn’t know how long they’ve been there when he finally hears it. Their daughter’s cry, full-throated and her own. “Let me hold her,” Scully demands, and then they’re both bending over their baby. She’s tiny and she’s perfect and she has wisps of red hair on her head. “Hello,” Scully whispers to her. “You don’t know how happy we are to see you.”

“So happy,” Mulder adds, touching one of her tiny hands. He can’t believe this has happened, that this is what has come of what they did together nine months ago, before they even knew…

“Madeline?” Scully says, turning to him, when the nurse asks if they’ve picked out a name yet.

“Madeline,” he confirms. It’s the right name for their second daughter, for another brave red-headed girl.

“She’s amazing,” he tells Scully, when it’s just the three of them. “And so are you.”

Scully smiles. “I think she’s pretty perfect too,” she says. “God, Mulder, I can’t believe she’s here.”

“I know,” he says, holding them both close.

“Will you call my mom?” she asks him, when Madeline is asleep and she’s close to following. “Tell her to bring Emily in the morning?”

“Of course,” he says, kissing her cheek as she settles deeper into the hospital bed.

They’re there as soon as visiting hours start the next day. When Emily steps into the room, she looks a little shy. “Hi, sweetheart,” Scully says. “We missed you.”

Emily’s staring at the bundle in Scully’s arms. “Is that her?”

“That’s her,” Scully says. “Did Grandma tell you what name we picked?”

Emily nods. “Madeline,” she says, sounding very satisfied that her choice was accepted.

“Do you want to come over here and meet her?” Scully asks. Emily shrugs.

“Well, I think she’d like to meet you,” Mulder says. “She’s been talking and talking about it.”

Emily gives him a look. “She has _not_. You told me she couldn’t talk yet.”

“Okay, you got me,” Mulder says, grinning at her. “But I think she’d like to meet you anyway. And your mom and I would like to give you a hug.” Emily finally makes her way across the room at that, settling onto the bed next to Scully. He hugs her tight.

“Emily,” Scully says softly, “this is Madeline. Madeline, this is your big sister, Emily.” Mulder watches Emily a little nervously. While she’s seemed to accept the idea of a baby sister more recently, she still hasn’t been over the moon about it.

But she looks fascinated by Madeline. “She’s so little,” she says. “Can we talk to her? Even if she can’t talk?”

“Sure you can,” Scully says. “Why don’t you say hi?”

“Hi, Madeline,” Emily says. “You’re so little.” She touches Madeline’s forehead gently. “You’re my little sister,” she says. “And we’re all a family.”

“That’s very sweet, Emily,” Scully says. “You’re going to be a great big sister. I can already tell.”

He wants to say something similar, but he can’t speak for the moment; there’s a lump in his throat. So instead he watches the three of them together, and he’s glad.


End file.
